False Alarm
by web of light
Summary: B'Elanna finds out that Seven was in the holodeck with Tom during The Void. Takes place between Extreme Risk and Thirty Days.
B'Elanna did not speak to him when she entered the room. She went straight to the sofa and sat down. Pulling her legs up, she rested her chin on her knees and stared straight ahead.

"Good evening to you," Tom said. "Have a rough day?" He pulled a beer from the replicator tray and sat down beside her.

"Work was fine. We fixed that small plasma coolant leak," She said. Her mind was clearly elsewhere.

"That's good. The Doctor was in a mood today. He seems to think it's my responsibility to make sure certain stubborn individuals show up for their physicals. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do about it," Tom said.

B'Elanna continued to stare at the wall.

"What is wrong?" He asked. Finally she looked at him. She wasn't angry. He wasn't really sure what was behind her eyes. For the first time since he had met her he didn't understand the look on her face.

"Seven was in Engineering today. I don't know how we got on the subject but we began discussing something I read in the engineering databanks. Lieutenant LeForge, the Chief Engineer on the Enterprise once created a hologram of Doctor Leah Brahms to help with a crisis on the ship. She was one of the developers of the Galaxy Class Warp Drive system."

"That's not unusual. You got the help of a holographic Doctor Zimmerman to help stabilize the Doctor's matrix," Tom said.

"During the discussion she told me something very interesting. She mentioned your Captain Proton program. She casually mentioned she visited the program once. With you. That the two of you were stuck in the holodeck when the power went down when we were traveling through the Void. Is that true?"

Tom allowed his mind to go back in time.

"Yes. I remember. We surprised that alien. The thing I remember most is the burns he gave me." He winced at the memory. "She had to help me get out of there. Long journey from there to sickbay."

"That was also right after we had that fight?"

"Which fight?"

"The one in the mess hall...right before Neelix's panic attack."

"Right. I remember. Glad it turned out to be nothing worse than what it was."

"Right after we had a fight you invited Seven into the holodeck?"

Tom sat down beside her.

"That's what's bothering you?"

"Wouldn't it bother you if I asked, I don't know, Vorik, to visit the Lake Como Program with me?"

"I suppose," He said. "But you were never interested in Captain Proton. You said it was my thing. You never seemed upset about the time I spent…"

"The time you spent with Harry. I don't mind you spending time with Harry. I thought it was all about 'guy' time…"

"It was. It is." She went back to staring at the walls. A light dawned in Tom's brain.

"This isn't about Captain Proton is it? Or the holodeck. It's about Seven being there. After the fight."

"Seven isn't exactly a 'guy'. You never said anything. Not then, not ever. Not a casual mention. Nothing. I find out from her…"

"It wasn't much of anything. We were barely in there ten minutes before the power went down."

"How long were you going to be in there with her if the power hadn't gone out? Were you looking to move on from me to her because of one fight?" She said. Her voice was steadily rising. Tom couldn't help it. It was their one common fault. When the anger meter of one started to rise the one inside the other rose right along with it.

"Considering your lack of interest in me then I could have slept with half the women on the ship and you wouldn't have noticed. If I had mentioned it would you have even cared? " He snapped.

She had reached her flash point.

"How dare you. You know perfectly well why I was…"

"I know that NOW. I had no idea what was happening THEN …"

B'Elanna got up and stormed out of the room. He didn't say her name or try to call her back.

"Here we go again." he said to himself.

She had nowhere to go. She walked up and down the corridor muttering Klingon curses to herself. There was no one to talk to because she couldn't even articulate her reasons in her own mind. The facts were clear. Her mind went back to her personal dark days. She had been pulling away from Tom and the time between their moments together gradually became longer and longer. She remembered that one particular fight because they had reached the point where they were barely speaking. She didn't want to be there in the mess hall the first place. All she wanted to get away from him, from that atmosphere and be alone. Almost immediately after that he had invited Seven, beautiful, smart impossible Seven, into his precious Captain Proton scenario.

What was she supposed to think? What if Chakotay hadn't pulled her out of the fog when he did? What if things had progressed differently? What if she eventually came out on the other side of her own personal void to find Tom gone, tired of being alone and with Seven?

The more reasonable side of her cautioned that Tom was with her now, the past didn't matter and to move forward. That would be exactly what Harry, Chakotay, Neelix and the Captain would say. Tuvok would go so far as to tell her that this train of thought was illogical. There was only one person whose answer was an unknown.

She didn't take the turbo lift. She was so full of energy that she actually walked to Astrometrics. Seven was scanning a nebula. The former drone might be an Ice Princess but she was so beautiful and eager to absorb new information. If Tom were with her he would convince her to literally let her hair down, to laugh and to explore new things. He would go about it in a completely different way than the Captain and the Doctor. B'Elanna shut her eyes not wanting to imagine being forced to work on the ship where the two of them were together.

Seven looked up from her work.

"Lieutenant," She said. B'Elanna had been so intent on coming down here that she hadn't thought out exactly what she was going to say.

"I was thinking about what we talked about earlier, about the hologram of Doctor Brahms," She said. She had done no such thing but she needed a reason to be there.

"Were you thinking of perhaps doing something similar for Voyager? Perhaps developing a holographic character of someone who was involved with the designs of the Intrepid Class ships would be more practical." Seven said. "Such a program might prove useful."

"Yes. Perhaps you are right," B'Elanna said. A silence passed between them that Seven did not notice. "You don't use the holodecks much yourself do you?"

"I do not as a general rule but I am utilizing them more now than I did in the past. I did not understand the concept of recreation but the Captain and the Doctor have been able to demonstrate the benefits of 'downtime.' It does help to refresh the neural functions," She said. She turned her attention back to her console.

"Yes. What did you think of...Captain Proton?" There. It was out there.

Seven smiled slightly without looking at her. Was that a good or bad sign?

"Lieutenant Paris was in the mess hall explaining to some crewmen how Captain Proton offered us a glimpse of how people on earth during a certain time period saw the future. I was intrigued and asked if I might accompany him to observe this simulation. He agreed. The setting was monochromal and the instruments very primitive. This was not in fact how any future of earth played out. He suggested I take part in a scenario which fell short of my expectations although I can see why it might appeal to Lieutenant Paris. It was not long after that the power went out and we spent some time trying to find a way out. We encountered one of the void dwelling aliens…"

"You invited yourself?" B'Elanna asked.

"Yes. Otherwise he would not have known I was interested."

"I see." More silence as Seven worked. "Well, I'm going to dig around in our database and see if we can come up with a suitable candidate from Voyager's design team. It might come in... handy."

"Yes. It might," Seven said. She continued with her scan.

This time she took the turbo lift back to their quarters. Tom had not moved. He was still sitting on the sofa drinking his beer. She walked in and sat down beside him just as she had earlier.

"Time for a rematch?" He asked.

"Why didn't you tell me she invited herself?" She asked.

"Maybe because it was such a non event that I forgot? She was interested in the program and there was no reason to tell her no and nothing else to do. I wasn't 'moving on'," Tom replied. Neither of them spoke for a few minutes. "I'm sorry about what I said about you not caring. There is no excuse for that...and it was unfair."

"But unfortunately probably true at the time. I'm sorry I thought...what I thought."

"It's understandable." He said."I guess looking at it from the outside it did look like something it wasn't."

B'Elanna went back to staring at the walls.

"Now what?" Tom asked.

"You waited for me. After I kept pushing you away. Even when I was barely speaking to you...you waited."

"I guess I was holding onto hope that we could get back whatever it was we lost. That you would come back. And you did."

"You have to understand. I didn't wake up one day thinking 'I'm tired of Tom. I'll just pull away and hope he gets the hint.' That's not how it worked. I lost interest in every single thing in my life."

"I know."

"And you still waited."

"Yes. I'm quite the hero aren't I?" He said. She laughed which was what he intended. Then she punched him in the arm which was a cue that it was his turn to laugh and pull her closer to him. They enjoyed the silence for a few moments.

"Promise me one thing," He asked.

"What?"

"If I ever find myself in a bad situation like that...that you'll wait for me. You'll be my hero?"

"I promise." She said quietly.


End file.
